


Man's Best Friend

by oneshycrow



Series: The Kids Don't Wanna Come Home [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Guns, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, One Shot, Swearing, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29188959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneshycrow/pseuds/oneshycrow
Summary: While trying to find somewhere to rest during the hottest part of the day, Jamie and Butch find themselves caught in the middle of a fight. It leads to them finding their new best friend, Dogmeat, and Butch later thinks it was fate as he recalls the pup being the best thing that’s happened to them in a long while.
Relationships: Butch DeLoria/Lone Wanderer, Butch DeLoria/Male Lone Wanderer
Series: The Kids Don't Wanna Come Home [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2142966
Kudos: 4
Collections: Fluffy February 2021





	Man's Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day three of the Fallout Fluffy February prompt challenge, which can be found here: http:// fluffyfebruary.tumblr.com/  
> The prompt is adopting an animal.

What a piece of shit day.

It’s all Jamie can think while he and Butch trudge along the worn, cracked road back to Megaton. Their packs are heavy with loot – landmines, to be exact, that clang around disconcertingly in their bags with every step.

“Fucking Moira,” Jamie mutters under his breath, wiping the sweat from his brow. The red bandana tied around his forehead only does so much, and in the midsummer heat during a particularly humid day it’s already soaked through. He’s aching for the vault’s air conditioning right about now.

“Ain’t you the one who signed us up for this?” Butch snaps, his voice laced with irritation. He turns his head and looks at Jamie from his position at point, huffing with impatience. “And catch up, will ya? The faster we move the faster we’ll get back so you can tell ‘er off or whatever you plan on doin’.”

Jamie screws his face up at Butch, almost wanting to walk even slower out of spite – until he realizes that’d just waste his time too. He hikes his heavy pack further up on his back and jogs to catch up to Butch.

As he gets closer, he can see the other man doesn’t look much better – his baby hairs are stuck against his sweat slicked skin and the beginning of a sunburn is blossoming on his already flushed face. 

From the sun beating mercilessly down on them, Jamie surmises its just about midday. They’re making decent enough time despite having to take a slight detour south out of Minefield to avoid the clan of muties hunkered down in Germantown. Even taking a small break to wait out the hottest part of the day will still let them reach Megaton before dinner.

He motions for Butch to stop. The other man gives in and leans against a nearby rock with a huff. 

“What’re we stoppin’ for, Nosebleed?” he asks, just a hint of exasperation present in his tone. Jamie drops his pack beside him and hops up onto the large boulder he’s leaned against. He pulls himself up with a grunt and hisses when he scrapes his knees, but he manages to make it to the top and stays low as his eyes scan the horizon.

“We’re taking a break,” he says and kicks some pebbles down at Butch when he hears the other man beginning to argue. “We have more than enough time! We’ll just find somewhere cooler and wait out the heat for a few hours – then we keep going, no problem.”

He pulls his binoculars off of his belt and wipes the dusty lenses on the hem of his t-shirt before looking through them to scout out the structure a few miles down the hill from them. It looks like a scrapyard of some type – not the most sheltered place, but there are enough piles of ruined cars and metal scrap that they can probably find some shade. There’s even a decent-sized wall flanking one end and a rickety, but intact, chain-link fence around the perimeter – not too bad for some quick shelter in case of danger or a dust storm.

“See anything worthwhile in that dump?” Jamie jumps and almost drops his binoculars off the edge of the rock and down the cliff when he hears Butch’s voice in his ear right next to him. He didn’t even notice the other man had climbed up to lay beside him.

“It’s not that bad,” he says with a click of his tongue, passing the binoculars to Butch and bringing up the maps on his Pip-Boy to calculate a rough distance between them and their destination.

Butch hums, “looks like a dump to me.” Jamie just rolls his eyes and snatches the binoculars away, ignoring Butch’s offended _‘hey!’_ as he secures them on his belt and slides back down the rock to their bags.

“One man’s dump is another man’s treasure,” Jamie jokes and grabs his pack, sliding his sunglasses on and beginning their descent to the scrapyard. Butch just scoffs and follows Jamie’s path down their perch with a lot less grace and gathers his things.

“S’not even how the saying goes.”

\---

Less than an hour later they’re approaching the fence to the scrapyard. It’s taller than it looked from up on the cliffs. The top of the fence is reinforced with barbed wire and every few feet there are old, rusted signs attached to the metal poles that read, **PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING**.

It’s unlikely that anyone would have access to power this far from any settlement or old city’s grid and Jamie can’t hear any buzzing, but he tosses a stone at the fence anyway just to ease his own paranoia. It bounces off without so much as a spark and Butch snorts.

“Did you really think it’d be electric? Scaredy cat!” he taunts with a grin, going up to rattle the fence. It creaks loudly under his hands and sways and Butch jumps back with a yelp, thinking it’s going to come crashing down. It stays standing, but Jamie laughs at him, nonetheless. 

They continue to walk the perimeter until they reach the gate which, to their luck, is unchained and they push further in with their weapons drawn. Not too far inside the fence there’s a decent-sized shack that looks like it would make good shelter, but it’s locked so tight that even Butch can’t pick his way in. Jamie tries to pretend that doesn’t creep him out.

It’s dead silent as they make their way to the north end of the scrapyard and hit the towering wall that runs along the edge of the ruins. They have some reprieve from the overbearing heat of the sun here as the wall casts a long shadow along their path. They’re ready to rest here for a bit when a sudden shout rips through the silence and they almost shit their pants. They both dive for cover behind the husk of an old pickup truck nearby, eyes wild and chests heaving.

“I know you’re out here!” the voice shouts again, and Butch grips Jamie’s arm, tugging him closer. 

“What the fuck did you do?” he whispers through gritted teeth, leaning up ever so slightly to look in the cracked driver’s mirror. It’s angled almost perfectly, and he can just make out the fragmented silhouette of someone walking along the top of the wall behind them.

“I didn’t do shit!” Jamie whispers back. The last time he had people on his tail was when Burke put that bounty on his head after he defused Megaton’s bomb and they’d solved that problem forever ago! Why did it always have to be _his_ fault when someone was after them?

“He’s over here!” another voice calls, much closer to their position. Jamie freezes when he hears footsteps thundering their way. There’s no way that guy could have spotted them so soon, so what-?

“Jamie!” Butch hisses and interrupts his thoughts, pulling his bag off and shoving it under the truck. “Get down!” Jamie follows suit, shoving his bag and his rifle under the truck and army crawling after Butch. It’s a tight squeeze, but they fit, shoulder to shoulder long ways under the vehicle with their bags stowed under their arms.

“They aren’t after us,” Jamie breathes out in relief, tucking his sunglasses into his shirt as Butch nods and does the same.

They hold their breaths when the sound of a scuffle breaks out, then more footsteps. From their position under the truck they can just make out a group of raiders walking by, dragging their victim behind them by his arms. He’s struggling and kicking up dust, spitting curses at his attackers and they shy away from the front of the truck, lest they be seen.

They drag him behind a rusted train car a few feet away. Butch’s heart is in his throat, one hand clutching his shotgun and the other gripping the back of Jamie’s neck. The other man is practically bristling beside him.

“We have to help him!” Jamie hisses, smacking the top of his head off the bottom of the truck as he struggles to get up. Butch pulls him closer, wrapping his arm around his waist and using his weight to hold him down. Jamie and his fucking bleeding heart.

“Are you kidding me?!” Butch growls low, wincing as the sounds of the fight continue. “We’re outnumbered by fuck knows how many – at least five!” He takes Jamie’s face in his hands, who is now trembling in anger, and strokes his cheeks with his thumbs.

Jamie knows he’s right; they don’t have the firepower. They’re already low on ammo and stimpaks from dealing with that crazy old man up at Minefield and their bags full of landmines would be more harm than anything when surrounded by explosive cars. All they can do is wait.

They hold each other, hands covering their ears as they try to keep their breathing even. Eventually, it falls quiet again. After a few minutes of silence, Jamie scoots forward enough that he can peek out from under the car, his rifle in his hands. He barely takes a look around when he sees a large, grey dog charging past them, its ears flat against its head and its lips pulled back in a snarl. He yells without thinking and attracts the attention of the raider on the wall, who takes a shot at him and thankfully misses, the bullet throwing up dirt a few inches from his where his head is poking out from under the car’s bumper.

Butch grabs him by the collar of his shirt and drags him out from under the car with him and they press against the opposite side of the vehicle, ducking away from the barrage of bullets that begin to ricochet off the ruined metal around them.

“There’s a fucking… a-a wolf or something!” Jamie blurts out, resisting the urge to look when another ruckus starts up from the direction of the train car. The dog is nowhere to be seen but given the growling and the raider’s confused shouts he guesses it made a beeline for them.

“Cool, alright.” Butch says sarcastically, counting out his ammo. “This place is so fucked.” Jamie glances in the driver’s mirror again and, seeing that the raider sniper is distracted trying to help fend the dog off his buddies, gets into position and aims his rifle. He places a well-timed shot through his scope, taking the raider down, before ducking back behind the truck. Well, there’s one taken care of.

They flinch when more gunfire rings out and they hear footsteps coming close. Butch cocks his shotgun and Jamie shoulders his rifle, his fingers twitching for the machete at his side instead.

Suddenly another raider turns the corner, face splattered with blood and eyes fogged with fear. He hasn’t even registered them yet when Jamie lunges forward and tries to cut him down with his machete. His swing is hard, but his aim is slightly off, and the raider falls back onto the ground with a screech, terrified but relatively unharmed. He aims his pistol at Jamie.

Before Butch has the time to react, the huge dog leaps over the hood of the pickup they’re sheltered behind. It doesn’t even spare a glance at them before leaping onto the downed raider with a snarl, finishing him off before he can fire a shot.

They stare at it as it turns toward them, stunned as the world goes quiet once again. Jamie notices, as it licks the blood off it’s chops, that it just begins to wag its tail and sits before them, friendly as ever.

“H-Hey, boy.” Jamie says in amazement and reaches his hand out, offering to let the dog sniff it. The dog does so happily, his tail thumping even harder against the dusty ground. He notices then that the dog’s eyes are two different colors – one a bright blue and the other a brownish green, and that he has much thicker fur than most dogs they’re used to seeing in this part of the Capital.

The dog sits up suddenly and takes off, stopping only briefly to look back at them as if it wants them to follow. Jamie and Butch glance at each other before shrugging and grabbing their packs. Stranger things have happened, they think as they follow the dog back behind the train car.

It’s a gruesome sight, so Jamie tries to ignore it, focusing instead on stepping around the dog’s mess and following it to the body of the raiders’ victim. He and Butch watch sadly as the dog nudges the trader’s body with a whine and gently pulls something out of his hands before walking back over to them. The dog drops it at their feet and Butch leans down to pick it up and inspect it closely.

“Jamie,” Butch says, holding the item out to him. His face is grim. Jamie takes it and studies it – it’s a red collar with a gold dog tag on it. Engraved carefully into the metal is the name ‘Dogmeat.’ His heart falls and he closes his fist around the collar, leaning down to pet the dog that was staring expectantly up at them. 

“Well, shit.”

\---

A few weeks later, Butch is walking back up the stairs to their little place in Megaton. It’s getting dark, the sun just now setting behind the hulking walls of the metal city. He’s returning from the outer gate where he was doing some trading with and catching up with Crow before the end of the day.

He shrugs his jacket off as he enters their house and slips off his boots. “I’m home!” he calls. He can’t hear Wadsworth’s usual whirring – Jamie must’ve already sent him to his pod for the night to charge. Besides the warm breeze whistling quietly through the holes in the shack walls and the quiet chirping of the crickets outside, all is quiet.

He grabs a Nuka Cola from the fridge and walks upstairs. Their bedroom door is cracked open and dim lamplight filters out into the hallway. He pushes the door open gently and peeks inside. Jamie is passed out in bed, one of his corny romance novels held loose in one hand. Curled up under his arm is Dogmeat, who’s snoring like a tugboat. 

The sight of them brings a warm feeling of love to his chest so strong he almost can’t handle it. Setting his Nuka Cola down on Jamie’s desk among his many trinkets and mementos, he pulls the novel from Jamie’s hand and carefully dog-ears the page, laying it aside as well. He pulls off his shirt and flicks off the lamp before crawling into bed behind Jamie. Dogmeat wakes and opens one eye, checking on him before letting out a long sigh and going back to sleep. Butch just chuckles and places a kiss to Jamie’s temple, shuffling one arm under his pillow and wrapping the other lazily around the other man’s waist.

Finding that dog was the best thing that’s happened to them out here, Butch thinks, closing his eyes and snuggling closer to his boyfriend. He runs his fingers through the thick hair around Dogmeat’s neck as he presses small kisses to Jamie’s shoulder. They both knew a thing or two about losing people close to them, and so did Dogmeat. He supposes the three of them are meant for each other. Maybe fate does exist after all, in its own funny way.


End file.
